


Let's Change the Inevitable

by Aluxra



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Love, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Implied Anxiety, Loki (Marvel) Lives, Natasha Romanov Lives, Non-Chronological, POV third person alternating, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Unreliable Narrator, implied PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2020-02-26 18:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18722242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aluxra/pseuds/Aluxra
Summary: A selection of scene-tweaks from Infinity War and Endgame because canon made some stupid-ass decisions and I've elected to ignore them, or change them. I do what I want.





	1. Conviction

**Author's Note:**

> I have a couple of ideas planned for different characters and scenes, and they'll all have individual chapters since I don't want to do a full, chronological fic of what I wished had gone differently during and after the movies. Given that this is the first scene across the two movies that I didn't agree with, this obviously is the easiest to start with and the subsequent two chapters will directly follow it, but the rest might be out of order and will jump back and forth between Infinity War and Endgame.
> 
> Hope everyone still enjoys reading. xXx

“And for another, we have the hulk.”

Hulk charged in the same moment Loki leapt forward, the Tesseract bouncing away as he grabbed Thor with both hands and dragged him away from Thanos. They rolled, falling from the raised platform that they had been standing on mere hours ago, before the optimism and hope for the future had been swallowed by the shadow of Thanos’s ship. Every bone in Loki’s body ached, but he swallowed a comment down when he considered Thor’s bruised and dirty face, blood dripping from his nose, the corner of his mouth, the wound on his temple from Thanos’s gauntlet. Loki swallowed at the sight of that too, averting his eyes.

Thor groaned in pain as Loki pulled them both upright, his face contorted in a pained snarl as he glared with his one eye, slurring his words through bloody spit. “You still have the _Tesseract_?! Loki!”

“You can conceive some terrible and awful punishment for me when we’re out of this mess,” Loki said through gritted teeth, hooking one arm under Thor’s and hauling him further back. Thor resisted, trying to twist out his grip, leaning his weight towards Hulk.

“Bruce. We have to help Bruce…” he trailed off, heaving for breath to hiss out each word.

“ _We_ have to get out of here.” Loki kept his grip on Thor, holding him back from doing something stupid, because he would definitely do something stupid and heroic and get them all killed. He scanned the debris and—and the bodies… for the Tesseract while Hulk fought a losing battle against Thanos as they traded punch-for-punch: single-minded fury outmatched by cold, brutal calculation. Hulk stumbled just as Loki spotted the Tesseract behind a fallen column of metal pipes and grating, wires and cables sparking weakly with blue-white electricity.

Unfortunately, Maw spotted it the same time.

Meeting each other’s eyes for the briefest moment, registering that the other had seen the prize, they lunged for it: Maw elegantly striding forward to pluck it from the ground, Loki frantically scrabbling across the floor on bloody hands and knees to snatch it back. Maw was faster, uninjured at full health, but Loki didn’t play fair. He summoned a dagger from the ether and threw it as he made a final dive for the Tesseract.

His fingers closed around the sharp corners of the cube.

The dagger sank into Maw’s arm.

Thanos beat Hulk to the ground, a shudder reverberating through the floor.

The jolt stole the Tesseract from Loki’s fingers; he chased it as it tumbled across the floor with three heavy, dead clangs that rang in Loki's ears, before it scraped to a stop at Maw’s feet.

Sound left the chamber. His vision shrank until there was nothing but the Tesseract, it’s cold light casting a blue glow on Maw’s smug face as he reached down with his good hand and curled his fingers around it's edges. Loki tracked it, unblinking, as time slowed to an almost standstill in the few short seconds that Maw presented the Tesseract to Thanos, his words warping and dragging through his little speech. Thanos crushed the cube in one hand in less than a second, but Loki saw it as if it took an hour, watching every crack and splinter form across its surface before it crumbled to dust between his fingers.

It fused to the gauntlet, set on Thanos’s knuckle next to the power stone. He turned his attention back to Loki and Thor.

Everything sharpened into focus again under Thanos’s stare. He couldn’t look away, even if he tried; his heart threatened to burst out his rib cage and run away, his ears roaring in time with his pounding pulse. Cold sweat pricked down the raised hairs on the back of his neck, but he didn’t unclench his fists to wipe it away; he wouldn’t reveal how badly his hands were shaking.

_Stall him._

His voice was lead. His mouth was too dry to speak; even if he could, they had no means of escape. He was good, but he couldn’t talk forever. Thanos wouldn’t allow it.

“I recall, you once said you would bring the Tesseract to me,” Thanos said, slowly approaching them. “In return for the use of the sceptre I granted you use of, for the vengeance you coveted against the man behind you.”

His eyes flicked from Loki to Thor, who wheezed for breath, his weight falling more heavily on Loki’s back by the dragging second. Loki braced him, keeping his body between Thor and Thanos.

 _Stall him_.

“Instead, you would’ve attempted to keep both from me, for the same man behind you.” He said it without malice or anger; a statement of fact that left no room for denial.

_Stall him._

Loki found his voice, forcing a smile onto his face, indifference into his words. “Perhaps you could consider it a momentary lapse in judgement. The other two stones on earth—you’ll need someone with experience to guide you to them. I have that experience.”

Thor jostled him sharply, but Loki refused to look at him, his eyes fixed on Thanos.

“If you consider failure experience," Thanos replied with a half shrug. His generals formed a half-circle behind him, watching Loki with savage glee. Loki’s knife hung at Maw’s side, the hilt rolling between his fingertips, blood dripping down his arm. Loki didn’t look at that either. Out the corner of his eye, Heimdall lay bleeding in the rubble, mouthing the words to call on the rainbow bridge one final time. Just a little more time…

_Stall him._

“I consider experience, experience,” he countered. Shifting his weight, he slyly gripped Thor’s wrist tight in his hand, and prayed Thor didn’t give them away with his stupid face. “In the end, it’s all the same: I’ve been to earth, I know who and what is there.”

“The Avengers,” Thanos said. He nodded, approaching them.

Thor tensed behind him, ready for a fight: Loki kept his grip firm, holding his ground even as Thanos narrowed the gap between them, even as he saw his own death closing in on him.

“Yes,” he agreed. “The Avengers.”

“The same group of humans that defeated you,” Thanos said. “Do you consider that another lapse in your judgement?”

A beat of silence. Loki licked his lips, searching for an answer.

He was going to die.

“See, that has always been your downfall, Loki,” Thanos said. “You’ve always lacked conviction.”

He was going to die.

He summoned a blade from the ether in his free hand, hiding it from view. His heart raced in his chest, chasing his death with each pounding beat. He fought for something to say; anything that would give them— _him_ —just a few seconds more, just a little bit longer to come up with a plan.

Time ran out.

Loki flipped the dagger around in his hand, catching the hilt as Thanos reached for him.

Light erupted from behind Thanos, a kaleidoscope of colour racing through the ship. The rainbow bridge shot past them, carrying Hulk’s half-conscious body along in its path. Loki leapt for the edge, pulling Thor along with him.

Triumphant, he turned to smirk at Thanos and his Generals.

The glint of a knife out the corner of his eye stole his attention the second before it sank into his throat.

It jolted him backwards, stopping his breath, his remaining knife falling from his grip with a distant, hollow clatter. A white blanket fell over his vision, spotted with black flashes, his steps faltering as he half-jumped, half-fell into the rainbow bridge. His fingers loosened from Thor’s wrist, even as he screamed without a voice to hold onto him, to pull him to safety, to save him. With one last spasm, they closed on empty air, and he shot through the window and out into space, the rainbow bridge carrying him far away from the decimated Asgardian ship, and Thor.

* * *

They zipped through space at dizzying speeds, only Heimdall knowing where the bridge was taking them. Loki swam in and out of consciousness, his hands curled around his throat to stem the bleeding, his magic exploding from his fingertips in a frenzy to salvage the damage caused, the hysterical green flashes healing him without conscious thought. He gasped for breath around the blade of the dagger as his magic slowly rejected it from his body, fighting to remain awake.

The knife was nearly completely ejected when a small blue planet rose up in his vision, the rainbow bridge arcing down onto its surface.

_Earth. Of course._

The planet surface came into focus at an alarming rate: mountains, cities, streets. The rooftop. Two floors. The stairs.

The rainbow bridge collapsed there, leaving them sprawled on the floor in a nest of rubble and debris, while the rest fell down around their heads. His dulling, spotting vision found two shadowy figures looking down on them, bright orange circles like shields fizzing and sparking in front of them.

_I remember them…_

“Thanos,” Banner—now Banner, not Hulk—said nearby, outside of Loki's vision. “Thanos is coming.”

Darkness swallowed Loki.


	2. Conviction Pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki's conviction... is kinda flighty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki is the unreliable narrator in this chapter. Not all chapters going forward will be from third person limited Loki POV.

Loki dragged himself back to consciousness through spite and stubborn force of will, his breath rasping in his throat as he pulled in deep lungs-full of air. Frozen where he lay, he blinked up at the ceiling for a few short seconds, recalling the where and the who and the how he ended up where he lay now.

Throwing himself upright, he ignored the black spots flashing in his peripheral vision and the sudden wave of lightheaded nausea, and grabbed his throat with clumsy, shaky hands. Dry, thick cotton scratched his fingertips, extending all the way around his neck; he mapped it blindly, testing for damp or boggy areas of drying blood. His wound hadn’t bled through, although his throat pained him with every breath; he sent out gentle, probing wisps of his magic to assess what would cause the residual burning ache, hyper aware of his heartbeat as it sent throbbing pain up his throat, and through his jaw, culminating in a headache that split through him from temple to temple and arced over his skull.

Muffled voices from a nearby room distracted him, his magic retreating back into the ether from where he called it. Straining his ears, he recognised Bruce’s hurried, frazzled stammering and the slow, muted drawl of the earth magician he and Thor had once encountered.

He swung his legs over the side of the table, gripping the edge till his knuckles turned white and gritting his teeth. Of all the places to send them, Heimdall had chosen the second-rate pretender who had been too cowardly to fight Loki in magic. Loki sneered; Heimdall must have lost his touch—or his mind—in his final moments to send them here. That gave Loki pause, pressing his lips together thinly. Thanos wouldn’t allow Heimdall to live after helping him escape, and Thor would follow—had followed—him to death at Thanos’s hand——

No.

Thor wouldn’t die. He couldn’t: he was too stupid for that—too stupid to keep hold of Loki’s hand so they could escape, too, no surprise. No: Thor would find some elaborate, dramatic exit from the fight and come storming back with cloak billowing and lightning flashing because “that’s what heroes do”. Idiot.

Loki’s shoulders slumped, and he slid off the table onto his feet. A little unsteady, unsure of the floor underfoot, but he strode as best as he could through the open doors and into the main entry hall, where Bruce stood speaking to the sorcerer and another Loki didn’t recognise. The sorcerer saw him first, his gaze shifting away from Bruce, who followed his eye line over his shoulder and spun to face Loki.

“Loki! Holy… I thought you’d be, I thought you were, I mean, you were pretty out of it.” Bruce stopped a few feet away from Loki, wringing his hands together. “You had me, uh, had us worried, there, for a while.”

“Actually, he was the only one worrying,” the sorcerer corrected, pointing at Bruce.

The other one nodded in agreement. “He would not sit down long enough to tell us what happened when we pulled you both out of the hole in our staircase. He was up and down and up and down from his seat. Then the pacing! Back and forth and back and forth and back——”

“Yeah, okay, I think he gets it, guys,” Bruce interrupted, glancing over his shoulder and holding up one hand to halt the repetitive rambling. He turned back to Loki. “Listen, Loki, do you—”

 _We need a plan,_ he interrupted. Well, that was what he wanted to say: instead he just wheezed, the words lost in a raspy hiss of air. He coughed, his throat contracting painfully as he struggled to breathe through the scratchy pain. Hands curled around his arms as he slumped forward, steadying him, his fingers scrambling for purchase: he latched onto Bruce’s shoulders, leaning his weight on him until he could breathe again. Regaining control, he jerked his head up, meeting Bruce’s eyes: Bruce’s face mirrored his, the perfect reflection of the dread that dropped his heart to his stomach. Gasping for breath, his eyes slid from Bruce to the sorcerer, who’d drawn closer during his coughing fit.

“Loki…” Bruce warned.

Loki lunged for the sorcerer, and stumbled out a fizzing orange portal on the other side of the room.

The sorcerer flicked his cloak over his shoulders as he turned elegantly to face Loki. “Let’s not do this again, hmm?”

“Loki, maybe you should just—”

Loki prowled toward the sorcerer again, summoning his dagger from the ether. The pull of magic flipped the room onto a steep axis, his vision sliding the opposite direction. His head reeled, pain squeezing his brain until he could feel it pulse. He shook his head, his foot slipping out from under him before he righted himself.

“Loki, I would suggest you don’t exert yourself—” Loki’s dagger glanced off a solid disc of magic, sparks hissing and flashing from the edges like fire embers as he flipped the dagger between each hand, thrusting it towards the sorcerer from every achievable angle, parried every time. “Loki, enough.”

 _What did you do to me?_ He snarled silently, nothing but hoarse, raspy gasps of air passing his lips. His vision shrank to a blur of orange and blue smudges on top of each other. The sorcerer didn’t answer, unable to understand him, parrying him again and knocking him back a few steps: Loki paused, panting for breath. Sweat clung to his forehead and temples, slipping down his cheek as he glared at them all with wavering vision.

“Loki, come on,” Bruce pleaded. “Let’s not get Big Green in here.”

The mention of Hulk drew Loki’s eyes to the faint, eerily familiar green glow resting on the sorcerer’s chest from a chain around his neck. He followed Loki’s gaze, his lips thinning into a grimace. He shook his head slightly. “Don’t—”

Loki threw the dagger in his hand: it bounced against the shield of magic and spun away into a corner of the room. While the sorcerer’s arms were raised, Loki rushed to grab the time stone from his neck.

The fizz of magic dispelled, and strong, firm fingers circled his wrists, halting his tracks inches away from the stone. The sorcerer and Loki glared at each other, frozen in place.

Loki snarled, and tugged his hands away. The sorcerer did not let go.

He tugged again, shaking them for emphasis.

“Are you going to stop attacking me?”

Loki just glared, and pointed to the stone. _Use it,_ he mouthed. When the sorcerer narrowed his eyes in confusion, Loki exaggerated the words— _use, it_ —and pointed between the stone and his bandaged throat, jabbing his finger more desperately towards the latter. The sorcerer’s face softened, his confusion replaced with understanding, then replaced with sympathy.

“Loki, I can’t do that. Loki—” He gripped Loki’s wrist tighter when Loki lunged for the stone again, the corner of his cloak whipping out and snapping Loki on the calf. The sharp strike was enough to undo Loki, sending him crumpling to the ground. He grunted when his knees hit the floor, keeling to one side. His hands, now free, caught his fall. Panting for breath, he shuffled into a sitting position at the base of the stairs, pulling knees up to rest his elbows on them, supporting his head on his hands.

Bruce came and sat beside him, placing a tentative hand on his shoulder. Loki shrugged him off, and Bruce did not try again. “Loki, it’s not Dr Strange’s fault. Don’t be mad at him for what Thanos did to you.”

Too tired, too angry, too overwhelmed—and unable to argue anyway—Loki wordlessly pointed to the time stone again, then back to his throat.

“Loki, if I use the time stone to reverse what happened, you’ll bleed out on my floor,” Dr Strange explained. “Your own magic seems to have automatically repaired the damage on a superficial level, but I can’t undo what you subconsciously did and correct it at the same time. You’ve lost too much blood and we have no way to provide you with a blood transfusion, given we don’t have immediate access to any, and we didn’t know your blood type.”

“Or whether Asgardian’s even have blood types.”

“Oh, uh, actually, Wong, he’s not Asgardian, he’s, uh, he’s…” Bruce looked to Loki, waiting for Loki to stop him. Loki was past caring. “Jotuun.”

“Even better,” Strange drawled. “Although you seem to be recuperating from the blood loss faster than a human, so I imagine a little more time and bed rest will get you back to full strength.”

Loki rolled his head up, glaring at him, and gestured to him from head to foot, mouthing: _doctor._

Strange sighed, looking down at his hands. Loki noted the heavy, methodical scars that scored the skin on the back of each from wrist to each fingertip. “I’m not a practising doctor anymore, and if I was, I was a neurosurgeon, not an ENT surgeon. I wouldn’t be able to help you.”

Loki hung his head, his frustration and desperation draining from him until empty hollowness filled him instead. He reached up and touched the bandage around his neck, wondering what the mess hidden underneath looked like. A silvertongue who couldn’t speak… he’d be the laughing stock of all of Asgard, if any still lived to see him like this. His fingertips fell from his neck, his hands curling into fists on his knees. He’d curse Thor if he still had a voice: Thor had chosen to go to earth, he had put them in Thanos’s path. Now Loki was mute, all because he tried to protect and save Thor.

Better that he was dead, otherwise Loki would kill him himself if he ever saw him again.

He touched the bandage again, sending little streams of magic into his throat to assess the damage, and winced at what he felt: a mess of cartilage and tissue and muscle and nerves stitched back together haphazardly, repaired to the bare minimum of survival. Evidently the focus had been to himself breathing, while everything else was a by-product of the magical interference. He dropped his hand from his throat: the complicated meshwork of repairs and corrections he’d have to make, without making it worse or affecting the surrounding structures, would take him time he didn’t have and energy he needed to regain before he could begin.

Thanos was on his way.

Loki needed to leave.

Bruce spoke with Strange and Wong over his head, none of them paying attention to him. He eyed them surreptitiously, recalling his dagger from the other side of the room and slipping it into the ether. Glancing towards the door, he judged the distance: he wouldn’t go unnoticed, but he could disappear into the crowd if he moved quick enough. Checking that none of the men around him were paying him attention, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and pushed himself up from the stairs.

Striding towards the door, he heard the crackling hiss of Strange’s magic—

—And tripped straight through a swirling orange portal.

 

Loki hated sorcerers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should be the last in this set of three that follow chronologically from each other, then the chapters might jump around between scenes from the two movies so characterisation might be different from chapter to chapter given how far or how early in the story line they might be.


	3. Now What?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony meets Dr Strange, from Tony's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much changes in this chapter, I just wanted to get in Tony's head for this one and see what he was thinking during their conversation.
> 
> Also, rewatching Infinity War (skipping the first ten minutes of course) I remembered there was a fight scene between Maw and the group before they ended up in space and I... don't want to write a fight scene right now. It takes so much more effort and energy for me than other scenes, so I'll come back and write a final fourth part to this set of chapters later, but right now, I just Can't.
> 
> Hope you still enjoy xXx

“Now what?” Tony muttered, gently pushing Pepper back as he approached the fizzing orange circle expanding in the middle of the path. So much for no more surprises, he hated his promises being broken so quickly: he’d have to log it and see if two whole seconds was the new record. Beyond the sparking, crackling—well, he guessed it must be magic, he hadn’t had a normal day since 2012—vortex, shadows and shapes began to focus into a large open hall facing a set of shattered stairs, four indistinct figures standing on the other side; until one fell through onto the ground by Tony’s feet, and he jumped back a step, surprised. Then shock turned him ice cold when the figure hurriedly pushed themselves to their feet, raising their head to meet Tony’s eyes.

“ _Loki_?!”

Loki’s eyes widened in recognition, his jaw falling open before he clenched his jaw shut with a clack, the muscle jumping in his cheek; he rolled his eyes in exasperation over his shoulder and onto the second figure stepping through the portal.

“Tony Stark? I’m Stephen Strange,” the man introduced, striding towards Tony and completely ignoring Loki glaring at him. Another surprise that Tony didn’t like.

“I need you to come with me,” Strange added. “We need your help.”

“Uh, “we”?” Tony repeated. He pointed between Strange and Loki. “You and him, that the “we” you’re talking about? Cause between not knowing who the hell you are and definitely knowing who the hell he is, neither is a “we” I want to help. Thanks for thinking about me, though, I’ll send you a card.”

“Tony.”

Tony stopped short at the voice, his breath catching in recognition. It had to be impossible, but no, there stood Bruce, stepping out of the glowing orange light show almost exactly as Tony remembered. A little older, a little wearier, with dark shadows under his eyes and a more noticeable slump to his shoulders. “Bruce.”

He couldn’t think of anything else to say, lost for words as Bruce carefully stepped around Loki without blinking an eye—even gently patting his shoulder to pass him, like they were friends—and stepped in to hug Tony. He opened his mouth to speak, his arms automatically coming around and returning the hug, and still couldn’t find the words, his jaw slack and his eyes finding Pepper’s, who looked equally lost.

“Are you okay?” It sounded stupid, even to his own ears. “What is going on?”

“Best not speak of it out in the open,” Strange said. “But I assure you, it is not an understatement when I say the fate of the world is at stake.”

Tony exhaled heavily, his heart racing. The end of the world had finally come.

*

Tony listened intently to Wong as he summarised the creation and existence of the Infinity Stones, each possessing a unique power: powers that the Avengers had been circling the edges of for years, stretching their hands out blindly to them every time one showed up, reaching without fully understanding what they were trying to reach. Someone else had been reaching for them this whole time as well, invisible fingers seeking out the stones for something big, something world-altering.

“What’s his name, again?” Tony asked, dropping his hand from his chin into his lap. He kept his hands loose, his feet planted firmly on the ground to stop his leg from bouncing, as every nightmare he had had in the last six years became grounded in reality before his very eyes. Unable to keep completely still, adrenaline ratcheting his pulse up to the pounding of war drums in his ears, he stood, making a show of studying the holographic display Wong had made of the stones.

“Thanos,” Bruce replied, wringing his hands together.

_From Greek: Thanatos, “death, to die, dying”._ Vindication didn’t feel as good without a full audience.

“He’s the one who sent Loki to New York,” Bruce continued. Loki gave a jaunty wave from where he sat on the wrecked staircase. “It’s all him. He was the mastermind behind it all, not Loki.”

Loki scowled at that.

Tony pursed his lips in thought, tapping his fingers against his palm as he considered the information that had been laid out before him, picking at connections and pulling at the strings of ideas and plans to see how far they spun before discarding them one after the other.

“So, this is it,” he muttered. He paced around the room with an air of nonchalance, as if he were considering the decorations instead of the end of the world. “How much time do we have?”

“No idea,” Bruce answered, his arms spreading wide; animated, restless. A visual mirror to the whirlwind in Tony’s mind. “Could be days, could be weeks, could be hours. He has two of these stones, that makes him more powerful than anything else in the whole freaking universe. You can’t imagine what he’d do with all six.”

Tony could argue with that. His nightmares could, anyway.

“And what about him?” he asked, pointing to Loki. “He’s on the team now?”

Bruce inched across Tony’s vision to put himself a little bit more in the direct line of sight to Loki. Tony didn’t know how to react to that, the shift in dynamic between Loki and Bruce surprising him every time he looked over and saw Loki lounging on the staircase like he belonged there, with them. So, he didn’t react at all, turning away and leaning against an old standing pot and stretching his legs, keeping up the façade of calm indifference to his nightmares coming to life.

“We’ve… been through some stuff, me and Thor and Loki,” Bruce explained carefully. “He’s helped us more than once when it mattered, so I think—hope—” he glanced at Loki when he said this, “he’ll help us now.”

“Bit of a stretch to put hope in this guy when Thor is more reliable, don’t you think?”

“We don’t have that option,” Strange interjected. “If Thanos gains the power of all six stones, he could destroy life on a scale hitherto undreamt of.”

““Hitherto undreamt of”? Seriously?”

“Get off my cauldron of the cosmos. Seriously.”

A slap of heavy material knocked Tony’s leg down, and he whirled around to see the Strange’s cloak drop back into place, except his hands had been nowhere near it. Odd.

“Okay, Mister Magic, if you don’t want him to get all six stones, why not take that one and flush it down the garbage disposal? Or hit it with a hammer – hey, you guys didn’t think of taking Mjolnir to the space stone while you had it?”

“Mjolnir was destroyed,” Bruce interjected, rubbing his hands down his face.

“By Thanos?”

“By Thor’s crazy older sister.”

“Oh my god, he doesn’t just have you?” Tony asked Loki. “Poor bastard.”

Loki glared at him harder.

“We swore a life long oath to protect the Time stone, not destroy it,” Wong explained.

“And priorities don’t change?”

“Not this one,” Strange said.

“Obviously neither does your fashion in what, two-thousand years?”

The cloak—not Strange, the fucking _cloak_ —slapped his leg again, and he startled back a step. Strange smirked at him, raising his eyebrows in challenge.

“Okay,” Tony said, pointing at the cloak and reorienting himself to the reality where clothes were sentient. “You know what, I will deal with that later.”

“The Time stone may be our best chance at defeating Thanos. It’s one of the few advantages we have against him.”

“And you don’t think the fact that it’s an Infinity Stone makes it an advantage to him, against us?”

"Only if you have no idea what you're doing."

"I think I have no idea what you're doing? What is that, again?"

“Okay, guys, we’re not getting anywhere fast, and Thanos is making a beeline in our direction,” Bruce said, stepping in between them. “Can we focus on that, please?”

“Look,” he continued. “We know there are two stones on earth—that one, and the mind stone, which is with Vision. We have to find him and get him somewhere safe, if there is someplace safe.”

“Uh, yeah,” Tony said, scratching his ear. “That’s… There’s a hiccup, in that plan.”

“What? What hiccup? Why hiccup? Androids don’t get hiccups.”

“Not this one. He turned off his transponder a couple weeks ago,” Tony said, pacing again. “He’s… gone. Offline. Untraceable.”

“You lost _another_ one? Tony!”

“Hey, he’s… he’s evolving, learning. He’s his own grown up person-android-bot.”

“Is there anyone else who can find Vision?” Strange demanded.

Tony paused, his back to them. One name sprung to mind. He discarded it and it bounced back, because, really, he was the other person Tony knew who had even the most tenuous link to Vision, if he still had Wanda under his protection. _Shit._

“Steve Rogers could,” he said eventually. “Maybe.”

Strange scoffed in disapproval, shaking his head.

“So, what are we waiting for?” Bruce asked. “Call him, get him here; get all the Avengers back and let’s do this. Just like we always do.”

“Ha, yeah, uh, that’s the thing, buddy,” Tony said, facing Bruce again. “You've been out of the loop for a while so I'll give you the abridged version: there are no more Avengers. We split up.”

“Split up? Like we’re some kind of boyband? What…”

A rasping, high pitched wheeze interrupted Bruce, and they turned to Loki, who sat clutching his stomach and curling over himself, gasps of air hissing through his teeth. It sounded like he was choking, or gagging for air, until he threw his head back, and he was actually laughing at them: holding his head in his free hand, he pushed his hair off his face and gestured between Tony and Bruce, his gaze focused on the latter. His grinning mouth formed silent words, carried on high, whistling hisses of breath, but Tony could understand the gist of what he found so funny. _Earth’s mightiest heroes_ , indeed.

“Okay, you zip it,” Tony said, rubbing his forehead. “Look, so, we haven’t spoken to each other in a while, and that doesn’t look like it’s about to change.”

“Tony,” Bruce said, pulling Tony’s attention back to him as he stepped in close. “Listen to me. Thor is gone. Thanos is coming. It doesn’t matter who you’re not speaking to.”

Tony clenched his teeth, hating the truth staring him right in the face. He paced, battling with himself. Anger had been harder to hold onto the longer time passed, but pride kept its claws sunk in deep; he had kept the phone for a reason, because logic won out against both of them. One day all his nightmares and fears would catch up and find their way to his doorstep. One day would come where he’d need people who he had at least trusted once upon a time to come and fight them off, because he couldn’t do it alone. One day, he’d have to swallow his pride and anger and reach out to the one person who still extended their hand to him.

One day had just arrived.

“Okay,” he relented. “Okay.”

He fished the old flip phone from his pocket, flipping it open and selecting the one number listed there. He thumbed over the call button, gathering the conviction to press it, when something shifted in the air. A cold breeze; a sudden change in air pressure. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, a chill creeping down his spine. He glanced at the others: Strange’s narrowed eyes and tense shoulders gave away his awareness of the change; Loki had stopped silent-laughing, his face pale and jaw slack, a fine sheen of sweat beading on his brow.

They glanced around the hall, barely breathing as the wind picked up outside, rising to a quiet, mournful howl.

“Hey Doc, tell me that’s you waving your hair to be dramatic.”

“That’s definitely not me,” Strange drawled.

A low, rumbling moan filtered through the hole in the roof, alien and threatening, carried on the wind.

Loki pulled himself up by the banister, staring at the front door. Beyond it, shadows rushed past, faint screams of terror joining the discordant choir.

Loki swallowed, his chin trembling as he slowly formed two words that made Tony’s blood run cold.

_He’s here._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next scene I have planned/want to write is the Clint and Nat scene from Endgame, and after that I hope to do the scene where Steve, Nat, and Scott approach Bruce for help on time travel, so here ends the chronology of chapters.
> 
> As always, feel free to leave a review, or suggest scenes that could be done differently. :)


	4. Vormir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Nat's adventure in getting the soul stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ignore the fact that Clint has a wife and kids. I've ignored it since Age of Ultron came out. I will keep ignoring it for as long as they show up in the MCU.  
> My reworking of the canon that keeps them in the canon, is that they are related through Clint's brother, Barney Barton (who in the majority of his comic appearances is a bit of a dick) so Laura is his sister in law, escaping a not-so-great marriage situation (still while pregnant as seen in AoU), and the kids are his nieces and nephews. He keeps them set up in a farm house off the radar via SHIELD's help, so Barney can't find them, and helps them out until its safe enough for Laura to get back on her feet and not be looking over her shoulder, but not having any romantic relations with her.
> 
> So while they are his family, whom he still lost in Infinity War and that loss deeply affected him, they're not his direct family, make sense? Great. Clintasha all the way.
> 
> Written from Clint's 3rd person POV, following the same beats as the movie scene up to a point (obviously)
> 
> Tags: Suicide Attempt, on a technicality, and Suicidal Thoughts, for Clint's inner thoughts briefly.

“Nope, we’re out of here,” Clint said with a strained laugh, offering the Red Skull a sarcastic, single wave. “Thanks for your time.”

He strolled over to where Natasha sat with her back turned to the cliff edge, her chin resting on her clenched fists. Her gaze was far off in the distance, her mouth set in a grim line.

“Jesus,” Clint sighed, shaking his head and readjusting his weapons on his back. “He’s lying. He’s gotta be making this shit up.”

“I don’t think so,” Natasha said, her eyes still slightly off to the left of Clint.

“Come on, Nat, we’re really going to trust the word of a hundred-year-old floating Nazi?” he asked, beginning to pace. He glanced over at the Red Skull, but he did nothing more than float silently to one side, leaving the path to the cliff edge clear. Unlike Clint or Nat, he didn’t seem to be affected by the light snowfall that caught in their hair, or the biting wind that nipped their faces. Clint turned and paced back towards Nat.

“He knew other things.”

“What? Like your dad’s name? So, what?”

“I didn’t.”

Clint paused, staring at Natasha.

Natasha finally dropped her gaze to her fists, her thumb rubbing over her knuckles as she spoke her next words thoughtfully. “Thanos brought Gamora here, and left with the stone, but not her. It can’t be a coincidence.”

Clint heaved another sigh. The logic was reasonably sound, for what is was: the fact it was called the “Soul Stone” itself meant it just _had_ to have some bullshit mystical rule attached to it. That was how those type of things worked in stories, right? Mjolnir only answered the call of the worthy, only the true king could pull the sword from the stone; only a soul could pay for the soul stone. He looked over at the cliff again, the sharp edge muted by the dark purple shadows cast by the dull twilight sun. Vormir seemed to permanently exist in twilight, stuck in the in-between of night and day but never one or the other. Maybe it was the power of the stone, the incorporeality of it: both “here” and “not-here”, neither one or the other until a decision was made. Schrödinger’s stone.

“Ah, shit,” he cursed. “Yeah, okay.”

A small, sad smile pulled at the corner of Natasha’s mouth. “We did say, whatever it takes.”

“Yeah, whatever it takes,” Clint agreed, hanging his head. “Aw, man.”

Natasha finally looked at him, catching something in his tone, and climbed to her feet, closing the gap between them. “Without the stone, we can’t undo what Thanos did. Billions stay dead; not just on earth, but everywhere in the whole universe.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

They both stared at the cliff, blinking light dustings of snow off their eyelashes.

“Well, then, I guess one of us is going over,” Clint said finally. The knowledge didn’t scare him; it didn’t really do anything to him, the numbness in his bones had settled so deep for so long that nothing could shake it. What was the emptiness of death, if not the next natural step? At least it would count for something. That was all that mattered in the end. That was why he had chosen the life he had lived.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Natasha agreed. The soft, sad whisper of her voice made his heart clench: if there was one regret he would have in doing this, it would be causing her pain.

“We both know who it’s gotta be,” he replied softly, his best attempt to comfort her. They might have all the time in the world with the Pym particles for a long, drawn out farewell, but it would just be delaying the inevitable. Best just to bite the bullet—or more accurately, take the leap—and get it done so she wouldn’t have to stay longer than needed on this damned planet.

“Yeah, I know.”

Clint reached out his hand to hers one last time, clasping it tight. It felt right, like the most natural thing in the world. He couldn’t remember his life before her; couldn’t remember what it had been like, before they dragged themselves out of that collapsing building, his enemies and her former colleagues raining fire and metal down on them. They’d trusted one another from the very first, on the split-second decision when he had offered her a different way, and she’d grabbed it—and him—with both hands and fought for it, tooth and nail and sheer force of will. Selfishly, he was relieved he didn’t have to know a life after her.

Then she squeezed his hand, clutching it in both of hers, and he felt the slight tremble through her gloves, the tension in her arms.

His heart stopped, his blood running cold. He stared at their joined hands, his body rigid for fear of one wrong move could send her bolting before he could talk sense into her. He collected his thoughts, keeping his tone light and casual as they locked eyes. “I’m starting to think we mean different people here, Natasha.”

“The last five years, all I’ve wanted to do is get things back to the way they were,” Natasha said, her face slack with shock, as if she was genuinely surprised he’d take the leap for her. “Everything I’ve done was so I could get here, to do this. So, everybody could come back.”

“Oh, don’t get all decent on me, now.”

“You think I’m going to just let you do it? I’m trying to save your life.”

“I don’t want you to,” Clint replied, shaking his head. “I don’t need you to. You never owed me a thing.”

Natasha, trying to interrupt, closed her mouth, her words dying in her throat. Unable to look away from each other, as if truly seeing each other for the first time, Clint smiled sadly at her.

“Nat, things can’t go back to how they were,” he said. “Too much has changed. I’m too different from what I was; they wouldn’t even recognise me, what I’ve become.”

“I don’t judge people on their mistakes.” Natasha shook her head, stroking Clint’s hand reassuringly. Her eyes shone in the dim light with unshed tears, her voice wobbling just on the edge of her words. “You never did.”

Clint’s composure began to slip, his eyes burning warningly of tears to match Natasha’s. He clenched his jaw when his breath quietly hitched, his chin trembling with the building grief. One of them would go over the cliff, and the surety that it would be him began to slip from his grasp. He blinked his eyes rapidly, speaking around the lump in his throat. “You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”

Natasha smiled, and they leaned in as one, closing their eyes and pressing their foreheads gently together. Like this, they could feel each other’s every little movement, from the change in their breath to the shifting of their weight, neither pulling away nor pushing closer. They could feel the small shivers elicited by the cold, the warmth of shared body heat.

Clint listened to the steady rhythm of Natasha’s breathing, the warmth of every exhale ghosting over his jaw. Loose strands of her hair tickled his forehead. He marked the feeling of it one last time, before he opened his eyes and pulled away, straightening with resolve. “Okay. Okay, Nat, you win.”

Natasha visibly relaxed, her shoulders sagging, relief smoothing the furrow of her brow.

Clint grabbed her collar and swept her legs out from under her, throwing her to the ground. “Sorry, Nat.”

He pushed up and turned, running for the cliff edge. A weight struck his back and pain erupted through his nerves, shocking his limbs into spasm. He cried out, stumbling and face planting on the ground. Boots crunched across gravel on his left as Natasha ran for the edge, and he threw his arm out, catching her ankle as she passed him, and pulled her to the ground with him.

She landed with a winded grunt, stones scattering. Clint scrambled to his feet and dragged her back. Leaping over her, he tried for the cliff again.

This time, the weight that landed on his back was Natasha’s whole body, leaping onto him piggyback style and throwing off his centre of balance. They tipped sideways, landing heavily on the ground again, within meters of the edge. Eyeing the distance left between them and the jump, Clint tried to wriggle out the tangle of their limbs, both pushing himself away from her and grabbing her arms and legs to hold her back from the edge. She fought him the same way, neither of them freeing themselves from the other as they both inched forward while failing to keep the other back until they dragged each other to their feet at the threshold, the sharp, sheer drop yawning wide beneath them, the jagged rocks ringing the flat circle like starving, waiting teeth.

Panting for breath, locked against each other in a tangle of arms and legs, they fought to keep the other balanced, while trying to send themself over the ledge. They wavered, finding their precarious balance. Clint’s pulse pounded in his ears, frustration raging through him like a furnace. He gritted his teeth, his eyes frantically darting between Natasha’s face and the drop awaiting one of them.

“God damn it, Nat, why can’t you just let me jump?” he hissed through his teeth.

“Why can’t you?” she demanded right back. Her eyes flicked to the bottom of the cliff before her determined gaze returned to him. “They think the world of you; you’ll never see them again if you do this.”

“I’ll never see you again if _you_ do this!” His voice cracked, his lungs heaving in his chest. His heart beat so hard in his chest he felt it would burst out his ribs and throw itself over the ledge. It would follow Natasha over anyway, if she got away from him. He wavered, dangerously close to the edge, and he shifted his weight as a stronger gust of wind rose up from the bottom of the cliff, battering them impatiently.

“Clint,” Natasha said softly, apologetically. “Clint.”

“No. No.” He shook his head, forcing his eyes away from her, looking anywhere but her face. “No, I’m not going to do this.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” she reassured. “You just have to let me go.”

He shook his head again, more frantically, squeezing his eyes shut and sucking in great lungsful of air. He couldn’t use his whole strength to throw her back and himself forward; he could pull them both over by accident.

“Clint,” she repeated, her voice close to his ear, her breath whispering across his skin.

He opened his eyes, and there she was, inches from him.

“Nat, please. Don’t.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I promise. It’s okay.”

“Nat…”

Her hand relaxed in his grip, slipping free and dropping to his waist. His grappling rope shot out to the side, embedding in the flat rock. He jerked his head to the side, his hand falling to where hers had been, loosening his hold on her further.

Then she shoved, pushing herself over the edge.

“NO!”

He lost his balance, falling after her a short distance when the rope pulled taut, stopping him a few feet from the edge while she continued down, down, down. “Natasha! NATASHA!”

He screamed in frustration and pain and fury, his face turned to the swirling clouds above, screaming wordlessly at them, cursing the whole universe.

The clouds above the two stone obelisks marking the entrance to the clifftop opened up above them, the wind rushing up through the tunnel created by them. Thunder rumbled across the sky, light flooding down from the strange, swirling tunnel and racing across the underbelly of the dark purple clouds. There was a blinding flash, and everything abruptly stopped.

Clint clung onto the rope keeping him from falling for several long minutes, staring down into the darkness beneath him: he couldn’t see Natasha, although that was probably for the best. The last image of her face would be of it inches from his, her eyes soft and her smile gentle. He gasped for breath through his sobs, unable to gather the strength to pull himself up. A part of him didn’t want to: let the rope fail, let him fall to his death. What did it matter, anyway? What could they achieve? Five years will still be missing, five years that couldn’t be erased with a snap. They’d bring people back, but they’d come back to a world they didn’t know or recognise. How fucked up was that?

Natasha shouldn’t die in vain, though.

That thought was enough to give him the strength to pull himself back onto the cliff top with a pained sound at the back of his throat, to force him to go on.

He operated on autopilot, his movements sluggish and numb. He unhooked the rope from the rock bed, winding it back onto its spool by his side. Approaching the Red Skull with heavy footsteps, he extended his hand out to him.

“You got your sacrifice, now hand over the stone and let me off this planet.”

The Red Skull cocked his head, his expression curious and confused. “I do not have it.”

Clint’s thoughts short circuited in a white-hot surge, red bleeding across his vision. “What.”

“The stone should come to your possession after the sacrifice has been made,” he explained. “I cannot possess it, myself, to give it to you.”

“Then where the hell is it?” Clint snarled, his hands balling into trembling fists. “Where the hell is the stone? What did Natasha throw herself over the edge for?”

“I cannot presume to know the stone’s reasons behinds its actions. I only advise those who seek it.”

“The stone’s _reasons_? It’s a shiny pebble, it doesn’t have reasons!” Clint spat. He glared at the Red Skull, his whole body shaking with adrenaline. “You lied, didn’t you? You fucking lied, you son of a bitch! We didn’t need to sacrifice anything! Natasha died for nothing!”

“I assure you, the way to the stone is sacrifice. A soul for a soul. Perhaps, the soul was an inadequate offering for the stone.”

His cold, monotonous tone broke Clint, and he drew his bow and arrow from his back, firing it at the Red Skull.

The arrow shattered before it reached him, and the Red Skull threw him across the rock with a blast of power. Clint slammed into the ground, sprawling across the gravel. Winded, he gasped for breath, hauling himself to his feet and rushing at the Red Skull again. He stopped short, stumbling to his knees when he saw empty space where the Red Skull had been floating. Twisting on the spot, he sought him out, his eyes darting across the jutting rocks and uneven stone, but he was alone on the cliff top, the mountain silent save for the wind and the far-off rush of waves against the rock face.

He was gone, leaving Clint alone and without the stone.

Defeated, Clint buried his face in his hands and cried.

*

Clint slowly picked his way down the mountain path, his feet scuffing the dry dust. He felt no rush to return to the present, even though he could avoid the trip down if he travelled back. He couldn’t face the others with his failure: losing Natasha and the stone was too much to bear alone, without seeing the heartbreak and disappointment on everyone’s faces when he told them.

No, better make the slow descent, stewing in his own guilt than run away back home the instant it was over. He considered if he could find Natasha’s body; at least take it home with him, give her a proper burial. Vormir had stolen her soul, surely it didn’t need her body.

He stopped short, clutching the wall beside him as he curled over himself, the pain in his chest too great to bear. He heaved for breath, tasting bile in his throat. Unable to throw up or catch his breath, he stood there for several long moments, trapped in an airless, choking fit, struggling to find something to ground him back to his body.

Eventually, it passed, and he straightened. Wiping spittle from the corner of his mouth, he gulped in air to his struggling lungs, and began to continue down the path when something caught his attention out his peripheral vision. Pausing, he turned his head, and squinted out across the flat plains of dust and sand, his eyes narrowing in on the single dark figure hurrying towards the mountain.

His heart leapt in his chest, the hairs on his arms rising in the hope that maybe… maybe…

He tampered down on the hope with a pained noise in the back of his throat, refusing to give life to the seed that planted in his heart, and inhaled a steadying breath, his hand on his hip, and glanced at the figure again: they didn’t seem to have seen him, but then, most people didn’t have Clint’s vision. They simply kept their hurried pace over the dunes, unwavering in their path: they were definitely heading towards the mountain. Clint began to walk again, picking up his pace, keeping one eye on the trail ahead and the other on the figure on the dunes: if they were foe, he could take on a single combatant hand to hand. If it were friend… god, he couldn’t stop the part of him that prayed for a miracle. He hurried down the trail, faster and faster, his eyes still straying to the approaching figure until they snapped into focus, and he saw who approached the mountain even in the dim light of the mountains shadow. He broke into a run, the ground beneath his feet giving way from solid rock to soft sand as he jumped down the last few feet.

“Natasha!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

Natasha stopped in her tracks, her head jerking up; even still so far apart, he felt her eyes on him, and she threw herself into a run, racing towards him.

Clint called her name as he ran, ignoring the burning in his legs and the freezing air in his lungs as the distance between them lessened and lessened, until Natasha leapt into his arms, and he caught her.

Forced back a step with her momentum, he steadied them both; her legs hooked around his waist, his face buried in the crook of her neck. He wrapped his arms tightly around her back, feeling the weight and warmth of her: not a mirage, not a hallucination. Tears tracked down his cheeks, catching on her hair, the damp red-blonde braid pressed messily against his face, tickling his cheeks with loose strands. He didn’t care; didn’t care how she clutched him so tight it hurt to breathe, didn’t care her suit felt wet, as if she’d been swimming, didn’t care that his arms and legs were shaking with exhaustion after the trip back and forth up the mountain, he’d hold her till the day he died if it meant he’d never have to let her go.

“I thought it was a trick,” she whispered, tears thick in her voice. “I thought it had taken you instead.”

He hugged her tighter.

Eventually, she shifted in his grip, her legs slipping down his hips to get back under her, holding her up. Clint didn’t pull away, keeping his arms locked around her waist, his forehead pressed against her shoulder. She clutched him just as tight, her cheek brushing against his, warm despite the cold air.

Clint straightened, his gaze falling on her face. He shook his head in disbelief, brushing away some loose strands of hair from her face, curving his palm to cup her cheek. “I thought I lost you.”

Natasha smiled, her lip trembling still, and they closed the last little distance between them and kissed. They moved together, neither initiating it, simply doing it; they kept it simple, closed mouths pressed firm and tender against the other’s lips, Clint’s hands cupping Natasha’s face, her hands pressed against his back, under the sheath of his sword and the quiver of his bow, only his suit between her hand and his body.

Clint drew back first, cocking his head back, his brow furrowed in confusion. “So, then, what happened to the stone?”

Natasha smiled, opening one of the small pockets attached to her belt, and withdrew the faintly glowing, orange soul stone.

Clint exhaled in a shocked rush: he hadn’t expected she would have it until he saw it, nestled in the palm of her gloved hand.

“How? We’re both—”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I don’t know. I just didn’t want you to be dead.”

“Well, I’m not going question when things go right,” Clint said after a moment of consideration. “Let’s get out of here.”

Natasha nodded, slipping the stone back into the safety of the pocket. Clasping each other’s hand, they activated the quantum suits, and went home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raise your hand if you believed someone sacrificing themself was a free pass to the soul stone. *raises hand*


	5. At the Cafe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, Natasha, and Scott go to Bruce with their time-travel plan, and Bruce also gives Steve a talking-to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like a few things concerning the snap were glossed over in Endgame, particularly the repercussions of "half of ALL living life" and what that would mean for the world, so I have Bruce lay it out a little more plainly for the others.
> 
> Second, I didn't like "Professor Hulk" in Endgame, he was too much comic-relief among other comic-relief characters, and was less "smart Hulk" and more "dumb Banner", so I'm saving Hulk for a later point.
> 
> Finally, in terms of how the world reacted to the snap, I may be leaning more on the pessimistic side of things, but I think it works overall.
> 
> Enjoy xXx

“Time travel?” Bruce repeated, speaking around a mouthful of scrambled eggs. He laughed under his breath, shaking his head. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“I’m afraid not,” Steve replied.

“We never meet up just for coffee. Why do we never just meet up for coffee?”

“Scott thinks its possible,” Natasha added, nodding to Scott sitting beside Bruce.

“ _Time travel_?!”

“Bruce, we wouldn’t be asking if we didn’t think we had a chance.” Steve leaned back in the booth next to Natasha, his coffee sitting untouched in front of him. The four of them sat at the back of the café, Bruce facing the door on the seat furthest from the window as he ate his way through three helpings of eggs and two full stacks of pancakes, washing it down with a pot and a half with coffee. Yet there was no sign of Hulk to account for such an appetite, when Steve had rarely seen Bruce finish a full plate of cereal when the Avengers had still been together.

Bruce caught him staring, and cleared his throat, wringing his hands on a napkin. “Sorry about this. I’m pretty hungry these days.”

“Eating for two does that,” Natasha joked lightly, resting her folded arms on the table, idly spinning her cup with her fingertips.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know about that.” Bruce shook his head, gulping down the last of his coffee and hailing the waitress for more. “It’s been five years since I last saw him. Five years of being Hulk free.”

“That must be a new record.”

“Yeah, you could say that,” he scoffed. “You wanna know what my last record was? Fourteen months. Fourteen months was the longest I’d ever been without Hulk surfacing, and before that, the longest had been five and a half. Now, five years, nothing. Not even a rumble. It’s… It’s weird.”

“Well, we didn’t come here looking for the Hulk.”

“I think you’d be disappointed either way, Steve,” Bruce replied. He leaned back against the high back of the booth, rubbing one hand down his face with a sigh.

“You know, there was a time when I believed; if Hulk ever showed up, one too many times, that was it for me. Bruce Banner would never be coming back.” He rubbed his eyes, casting his gaze up to the ceiling as if the answers were written on the tiles. “And now it’s like, Hulk is gone. I have to live with just being puny Banner again, have to remember I’ve not got that safety net where Big Green shows up and I’m saved from harm. I could actually get hurt. It’s crazy to think that I was taking him for granted, all those times I complained about him.”

“I’m sorry, Bruce.”

Bruce shrugged. “Yeah well, it’s not like we can change the past.”

“I mean, you say that,” Scott interjected. “But, if we had time travel…”

“It’s impossible,” Bruce replied. “Even if it wasn’t, you would have to contend with the time paradox created by said time travel: going and changing the past would—theoretically—only create an alternate timeline while leaving this one unchanged, or you would—theoretically—change this timeline’s present for the worse, or you might change your past so your future never happens. Theoretically.”

“Yeah, Stark maybe mentioned that,” Scott said, chewing on his soda straw.

“Tony knows his stuff. He’s got a better idea of this kinda thing, I’m mediocre at best.”

“What? Don’t you have, like, seven PhDs?”

“Yeah, and I’m currently having to use all of them to stop the whole world collapsing in on itself.”

Steve sat up straighter in his seat, his eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”

Bruce sighed, dropping the forkful of eggs half way to his mouth back on to the plate. “I mean, while you guys have been dealing with natural disasters and averting civil wars, what do you think has been going on in the background?”

Steve and Natasha shared a look; Natasha shrugged.

“Everyone seemed to be looking out for themselves, all the governments had the same idea of isolationism and focused on their own problems,” Natasha summarised.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like they had much choice, when Stark Industries bought out the majority of the worlds weapon manufacturers—don’t make that face.”

“What face?” Steve asked.

“That face you just had of big disappointment, like Tony betrayed you or something.” Bruce leaned forward, folding his arms on the table and fixing Steve with a hard look. “Let me tell you something about the world, about its governments, Steve: they don’t care. They didn’t care that half of all living things got wiped out; they didn’t care that their population was halved. All they cared about was whether or not _their_ half was bigger than everyone else’s half, and they were ready to gamble on war after war after war just so they could take someone else’s remaining resources to keep themselves comfortable. Except Tony, by sheer dumb luck, is one of the few billionaires left alive with his company still standing, and he and Pepper swallowed almost all of his former competitors within a month and turned them into something useful: he’s the reason the world still has running water, has electricity, has cleaner energy. He stopped all-out war before if even began, so innocent people didn’t get hurt, so they could keep on living whatever lives they have left.”

“So, you can take the moral high ground and be the righteous man, believing that people, or soldiers, or governments, will do the right thing because it’s the right thing, but the reality is, you’re the only one who thinks like you,” Bruce said. “Tony saved the world in the most effective way he knew how, so everyone else could stand a chance.”

Steve averted his eyes to the table, pressing his lips into a thin line in shame. “I’m sorry, Bruce. I shouldn’t have jumped to the worst conclusion. Even if that is true, I don’t want to do this for the sake of the government or world leaders, I want to do it for the innocent people who got caught in the crossfire of _our_ fight with Thanos. I want to try because it _is_ the right thing to do, so people can live their lives with the one’s they loved and lost. Even if we fail.”

“Yeah, well,” Bruce conceded, relaxing back into his seat. “Even when we succeed, things still aren’t looking great.”

“That’s an understatement.” Natasha smiled mirthlessly.

Bruce shook his head. “Nah, nah, nah, you don’t understand. The governments released a census of the missing people, but not anything else. Hell, if anyone found out I told you guys... this is what me and the scientific community has been working on behind the scenes for the last five years: we’ve been studying and calculating the remaining numbers of all the remaining resources left, cause Thanos didn’t just wipe out half the people, he wiped out half of _everything_. That caused problems in on itself.”

“Wait, what? How?” Scott asked. “I thought the whole “destroy half the universe, save the other half” was Thanos’s great plan?”

“Except how many species—doesn't matter if they're plant or animal—can you think of that were on the “kind of endangered” list? Half those numbers, suddenly they’re now “really endangered”, and all those species that were “really endangered”? They’re now effectively extinct. And don’t get me started on the crash to the eco-system when half of all insects _alone_ disappear.”

“Bruce, all I’m hearing is even more reasons to give this a shot,” Steve countered. “If the situation is that bad—”

“Oh, it’s not even close to what you’re thinking,” Bruce replied, rubbing his eyes under the lens of his glasses. “I’m talking twenty years, maybe, before total collapse.”

There was a long pause; Scott, Natasha, and Steve all stared at each other, absorbing this new information.

“So,” Scott drawled out, turning back to Bruce. “Time heist?”

Bruce exhaled a long hard breath, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead. He looked up at Steve over the rim of his glasses. “You really think this would work?”

“If there was anyone who could figure a way to make it work, it would be you,” Steve replied, almost as if he was trying to reassure himself.

“No, it would be Tony,” Bruce corrected. He straightened in his seat, scratching a hand through his hair. “I’d have to see how the quantum tunnel you guys created works, then I’d have to calculate how to manipulate the quantum realm to navigate the traveller to a specific point in our timeline, and _then_ I’d have to figure out a way to bring them _back_ without disrupting the quantum tunnel and leaving them stuck in the past, or worse, split between them.”

“That would be messy,” Scott agreed, pulling a face.

“And that would all just be for the theory behind it, not actually doing it.”

“I still think it’s worth trying,” Steve replied. “Even if we fail, at least we tried something.”

“You ever consider you might just be delaying the inevitable?” Bruce asked.

Steve shrugged. “If what you say is true, then it’s not like we can change it. So yeah, I’m willing to try delaying it for as long as we can.”

“So, time heist?” Scott repeated, a smile on his face.

Bruce stared at each of them in turn, before his shoulders slumped in resignation. “Yeah, okay. Time heist.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the next chapter will be when Bruce and Rocket go to recruit Thor back into the fold, so you'll see him and Loki in the next chapter (Loki survived the snap, btw; I might write the fight on Titan at some point to include him, though I don't think it would change much).  
> After that, might be the chapter of Tony and Nebula's (now including Loki) flight back to earth after fighting on Titan or maybe the reunion between Loki and Thor at least. Then... I don't know, maybe send Loki back in time to Asgard with Thor? Or send him to New York 2012 and have two Loki's running around there? Or Thor meeting the Guardians for the first time/justifying why he needs a weapon when he got all that character development in Ragnarok that I'm not bitter about...  
> I want to rewrite the final big battle scene in Endgame, but that would take a lot of words and a lot of time, so I'm holding off on that until Endgame comes out on home media so I can watch it through to help me plan the chapter. And then I'd finish this off with a rewrite of the ending of Endgame with all the different paths the characters take.  
> Other than that, feel free to put ideas and suggestions in the comments of scenes that could be changed.
> 
> PS. When I do finish this fic, I will be rearranging all the chapters so they're chronological again, so it'll make more sense timeline wise.


	6. New Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and Rocket go to collect Thor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, how y'all doing?
> 
> I'm not dead, obviously, as I post this, I just fell off the creative wagon into a really deep slump the last 5-6 months, so every creative outlet went out the window. Drawing, reading, and other activities slowly came back over time, but writing was the last thing that I managed to get back, hence the down time.
> 
> So, about this chapter; I never liked "fat" Thor. As someone who has a depressive mood disorder that requires medication to at the very least keep me functioning at a baseline level, I get it that diet is one of the things that can go balls to the wall crazy and you either overeat or you forget to eat entirely (I lean more towards forgetting to eat or sporadically eating) and it is a major symptom of a number of mental health ailments. And it's used to depict Thor's mental health as comic relief and as a foundation for a number of jokes aimed at him solely about his weight.
> 
> This didn't jive well with me, so I changed it; but instead of trying to accurately depict someone who does overeat as a symptom of their mental illness, as this isn't something that features commonly in my own life, I chose to rework the depiction of Thor's mental health with something I do recognise and can relate to, and something I believe is fitting with both his character during the Infinity War/Endgame movies and how family history can play a role in mental illnesses.
> 
> Enjoy xXx

Bruce thanked the truck driver, handing him several krone notes through the window, as Rocket surveyed “New Asgard”, a wrinkle in his nose at the overwhelming smell of salt and fish.

“Well, if this ain’t a long way from a golden palace and rainbow clouds,” he said drily.

“Hey, have a little respect and compassion,” Bruce admonished, jogging up to his side. He swept his gaze over the Asgardians they passed, who cast their own curious eyes back at them. “These guys lost everything within a span of a few days: their whole planet, half their people; it took a toll on them.”

“So, they set up in the furthest, stinkiest, tiniest place in the middle of nowhere?”

“Hey. _Compassion_. And the smell isn’t so bad; it’s just seaside air.”

“You don’t have my nose.”

“No, but I have mine. Trust me, I smell better than you do… in more ways than one.”

“In more—hey!”

“Well, would you look at that,” a voice cut across Rocket’s protest, and they both turned as a familiar face strolled up towards them. Valkyrie cocked her head to the side, her hands buried in the pockets of her ordinary-looking jacket as she addressed Bruce with a tilted half-smile. “Some new faces in town… although I _swear_ you look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Hey, Valkyrie,” Bruce greeted, wringing his hands together before spreading them, offering a hug. “Small, angry girl; it’s good to see you again.”

“Surprising to see you,” she replied, accepting the hug. “Although, watch who you’re calling small when you’re not much taller; where’s Big Green?”

They parted, and she stuck her hands back in her pockets, waiting, while Bruce fidgeted with his hands.

“Uhh, oh, yeah. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“A few years, now, at least, and while I say it's good to see you, it’s a long way to travel for a wasted journey.”

“I wouldn’t say that until you hear what I have to say. Where’s Thor? Is Loki here with you guys?”

Valkyrie paused, something shifting in her expression before it closed off; not fast enough for Bruce to miss, and he narrowed his eyes, brow furrowing in worry.

“Is everything okay?”

Valkyrie licked her lips, her tilted half smile returning as a grimace. “I should’ve figured you wouldn’t know, given how long it’s been: come on, I’ll take you to Loki. Then we can visit Thor.”

*

They didn’t need to travel far, in such a small town; Valkyrie led them away from the docks, up a winding street and knocked on a faded red door at the very end of the road, set apart from the others down the hill from it by a tiny, fenced off garden crammed with a mish-mash of plants and herbs; at a glance Bruce could see a few that were _definitely_ poisonous. He side eyed the death-garden while Valkyrie waited for an answer, her foot tapping against the path. No sound came from within. The curtains were drawn; the lights were off. Valkyrie hammered on the door again.

“Maybe he’s out?” Rocket suggested.

Valkyrie grunted in frustration, heaving a sigh as she dropped her forehead to her fist, bashing against it gently. “Yeah, right. He barely goes out for groceries let alone for social appearances. He doesn’t even get his illusions to do his work for him.”

She hammered her fist on the door again.

“Loki! Loki, if you’re having another meltdown in there, at least open the damn door!” she yelled over the thumping on the wood.

“Meltdown?” Bruce repeated, alarmed. “Has it been that bad?”

“Well, “meltdown” is a bit of an overstatement,” Valkyrie corrected, pulling a face. “He's just... well, it's not the easiest for him. I know Asgard has suffered, but... what with him still being on the “world-threat” list, and having to live in disguise all the time with humans coming and going… it’s difficult to get things done, and when things go even slightly off plan, he becomes… well...”

She shrugged, gesturing vaguely.

Bruce nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like Loki.”

“Yeah, he's a drama queen; but if it's what helps him get through the day, I can't judge him for it. I do, however, need him to answer his door!”  She thumped on the door again. “Loki!”

The door swung open sharply, banging against the hallway wall. Loki stood in the entrance way, scowling at Valkyrie. He signed something quickly with his hands, his expression shifting with each word. Valkyrie read his hand movements carefully, before she raised her unimpressed stare to his face.

“That’s not exactly a saving grace,” she replied. She nodded her head at Bruce and Rocket, and Loki blinked, noticing them for the first time. “They’re here about some Avenger’s thing. They wanted to speak with Thor.”

She said the last part while casting a very specific _look_ at Loki. His face changed immediately, much like the way Valkyrie’s did when Bruce had mentioned him, before it closed off with a pursed frown. Bruce’s stomach tangled in knots, his worry increasing with all their _looks_ and the obvious lack of Thor _anywhere_ , although he tamped down on his growing fear: they would have said outright if something bad had happened.

Loki huffed a sigh and nodded, stepping to the side to allow them entrance into his home. They filed in, in a single line, and Loki followed them with a click of the closing door.

The house was small, and cluttered with books and papers and odd little contraptions and objects on every available surface. The kitchen had utensils on every surface; drying plants hanging from ceiling racks, bowls of steeping herbs on the windowsill, pots simmering on the stove top. A myriad of smells and odd coloured steam infused the whole house, clouding the windows with condensation. Blankets and pillows drowned the furniture under them in the living room, and pens scattered the carpet and across the coffee table among the used cups piled on each other and the precarious stacks of books. Loki gestured to the sofa pushed back against the far wall, and signed something to them.

“He wants to know if you want something to drink?” Valkyrie translated, falling sideways across the closest armchair, her one leg dangling over the arm, her other foot planted on the floor.

“Hm? Oh, no, no thank you,” Bruce replied, shuffling around some pillows and sitting on the edge of the sofa seat. Rocket climbed up beside him, testing the bounce of the cushion. Loki took the last remaining armchair, and Bruce studied him and what Valkyrie had meant by a total disguise: Loki was almost unrecognisable, dressed plainly in dark jeans and a green plaid shirt, his sleeves rolled up past the elbows. He sported a neatly cropped beard and moustache, his now-short hair lightly twisting in dark, red-blonde curls. With a pair of thin wire rimmed glasses perched on his nose, he looked closer to a librarian than the God of Mischief.

“So, Loki,” Bruce began, “you’re looking—” _different_ “—well.”

Loki smiled wryly as he shrugged. “Small… price… to pay.”

Despite the halting, raspy near-whisper Loki spoke in, Bruce smiled brightly at him.

“Hey, you’re speaking again! That’s great, Loki! Are you getting speech therapy?”

Loki nodded, and returned to signing, looking to Valkyrie for translation.

“He can only speak in short bursts, so you’ve got me as your translator,” she explained, her foot bouncing idly. “Unless you know NSL?”

“Can’t say my high school never had it on the curriculum,” Bruce answered. “My ASL is pretty basic, too.”

Loki brightened, his signing changing.

“He can do that too,” Valkyrie said. Catching the look on Bruce’s face, she smiled. “Allspeak. It extends to _all_ languages, not just spoken.”

“Neat party trick,” Rocket muttered. Bruce shot him a look, but Rocket just shrugged.

“So, why are you here?” Valkyrie asked.

Bruce didn’t know if Loki had signed it, or if she was asking herself, but he cleared his throat, leaning forward in his seat.

“Listen, guys, I’m sorry to barge in on you guys like this,” he began, tapping his fingers together. “I know everyone’s been out of touch somewhat these past few years, but we need your help.”

“What’s going on?”

“There’s a strong possibility—a good chance, really—that we can fix… everything.”

Valkyrie and Loki shared a look.

“What do you mean, everything?”

“I mean… Thanos,” Bruce said carefully.

Loki’s expression changed at once, turning cold and hard. His gaze went blank, distant, before it snapped back into focus, narrowing in on Bruce. His pulse visibly jumped in his throat, the tendons pulled taut as he swallowed. He threw himself up from his chair and turned to storm from the room, his bare feet near stomping against the wooden floor.

“Loki. Loki!” Bruce stood up after him, following a few short steps when Loki stopped at the door, his back to them, bracing his hands against the jamb. “Look. I know what happened to you… I get that it might scare you.”

Loki wheezed a laugh, his shoulders heaving as he spun to face Bruce, signing with deliberate emphasis.

“You have no idea,” Valkyrie translated quietly from behind him.

“Maybe,” Bruce agreed, meeting Loki’s eyes steadily. “I do however, know that when you were given a choice to run away, or help the people you cared about, even when it meant the destruction of your world, you chose to help.”

Loki smiled grimly, more a grimace, signing again.

“I destroyed that world. I think,” Valkyrie said. “You’re in my line of sight, I can’t quite see. If you step a little to the right—”

“It was for the good of the people,” Bruce argued. “It was the only way to stop Hela. Loki—”

Loki shouldered past Bruce, moving to the window. Throwing open the curtains, he looked down the empty street, watching the small figures on the dock bustle about.

“Loki, we could bring them back,” Bruce replied. “All of them. Everyone Thanos killed.”

Loki shook his head again, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

Bruce sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay. Okay, Loki. I know it’s a lot to ask, especially with the “world-threat” still stuck on you, even after everything you’ve done to help. We could use your help just as much as everyone else’s, but if you can’t, okay. I’m not going to force you. I’ll just talk to Thor, and then we’ll go.”

Loki snorted with a joyless, scratching laugh. He finally looked back at Bruce, his eyes a little waterier than when he’d first opened the door, but Bruce didn’t point it out. “Good… luck.”

Bruce clicked his tongue against his teeth, pressing his lips into a thin line. “Okay. What is going on? Why do I need luck talking to Thor? Where is he?”

He looked between Loki and Valkyrie, his face pinched in worry. “What are you guys not telling us?”

Loki and Valkyrie shared a look between them, and Bruce’s heartbeat ratcheted up again.

*

“How far is this place, again?” Rocket complained, lagging behind Bruce a few paces as Valkyrie and Loki led them up the hillside, just within sight from the town. “What are we doing all the way up here, anyway?”

“Just a little further up,” Valkyrie called over her shoulder, hiking ahead as they rounded a bend and passed through a ripple of magic. Bruce blinked and looked over his shoulder, even though he couldn’t see the invisible forcefield, with a questioning frown.

He didn’t get much time with his thoughts, when Rocket’s repeated taps to his arm drew his attention forward again, upon the sight of a pleasant little cottage tucked into the hillside. Grass covered the low rooftop, as if the homestead had grown out the side of the hill and hadn’t quite separated from it. A wide porch jutted out from the front, lined with carved wooden poles and shaded by a sloped awning. A low fence bordered the whole property, the garden growing wild flowers and tall, waving grass that crept into the white gravel path leading to the porch steps.

“Well, ain’t this quaint. What is this?” Rocket asked quietly, for Bruce’s ears only.

Bruce shrugged wordlessly, studying the cottage as they approached, and blinked when he caught sight of the two gardeners tending the flowers.

Korg straightened from his work, offering them a smile and a wave. “Heya boys. Nice to see you. Just doing a bit of gardening here. Little bit of upkeep, keep the place tidy and whatnot.”

“Hi, Korg. It’s, uh, good to see you, too.” Bruce slowed his pace, stopping in front of Korg as he climbed to his feet. The grasped hands, briefly shaking in greeting. “It’s been a while.”

“Sure has. You look different. You done something with your hair?”

“Uh… New shampoo.” Rocket shot him a mocking look, rolling his eyes.

“Looks good. Suits you.”

“Thanks.”

“So, Thor,” Rocket interrupted the awkward exchange. “Bout yay tall, one eye, broody. Ring any bells for you guys?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, he’s sleeping inside,” Korg replied, pointing to the house behind him.

“At this time of day?”

“Bruce!” Valkyrie called down to them before Korg could answer, halfway through the door and propping it open with one hand. Bruce nodded to her, turning and nodding to Korg.

“It was good to see you, Korg.”

“You too. We should catch up, sometime.” They shook hands, and Bruce crossed the remaining distance along the garden path and up the porch steps, Rocket tailing behind him; he slowed when he drew up beside Valkyrie.

“So, what should I prepare myself for in here?” he said in a low voice. Valkyrie levelled a steady look at him, barely blinking.

“Don’t freak out,” she warned.

Bruce nodded, stepping through the front the door into a genial, cosy entry way that led into the main hallway. Passing the kitchen on the left, where the window let in bright beams of warm yellow light, and the living room on the right that didn’t look used, he headed for the furthest door at the end of the corridor, where Loki stood waiting for him, gesturing to the door behind him for Bruce to go through.

Glancing one last time over his shoulder at Valkyrie, he braced himself with a deep breath, and glanced to Rocket. Rocket nodded slightly, encouraging him on, and Bruce pushed open the door into the next room.

The bedroom was reasonably spacious, with minimum decoration or personal touches; but cosy despite the size likely due to the large, carved wooden bed occupying the centre of the cosy room, a translucent, pale gold dome encapsulating it. His heart racing in his ears, Bruce stepped further into the room, his eyes fixed through the shimmering golden haze on the figure lying motionless upon the bed. Drawing up beside the bed to better see the face of the man laying unmoving under the golden force field, his heart jumped to his throat.

“Oh, no.”

“Bruce,” Valkyrie said quickly, appearing beside Loki, but it was too late.

“Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Thor’s dead. Thor is… He’s… This… This cannot be happening. I… I have to tell the others. I—How did this happen?” He gasped for breath, stumbling back from the bed and turning his gaze aware from Thor’s immobile form, his hands shaking. He sank into the empty armchair next to the bed, curling over himself and clutching his hair. “Oh my god. How long has he —? Why—Why didn’t you _tell_ us?”

“Bruce. He’s not dead,” Valkyrie said.

Bruce stared at her, dumbstruck. “What?”

“He’s not dead.” She shrugged, folding her arms across her chest and leaning against the door jamb. “He asked that no one come searching for him, and that we don’t tell anyone. You guys obviously respected his wishes, so, so did we.”

“How long?”

“Since after Thanos,” Valkyrie explained. “Just under five years.”

“Five years. Five years like this, and he’s… he’s not dead?”

“He isn’t,” Valkyrie promised. “It’s Odinsleep. Although, I guess it’s Thorsleep, now.”

“Odinsleep. What is Odinsleep?”

“Family tradition,” Loki sneered hoarsely, glaring at the golden light haloing Thor.

Valkyrie sighed, rubbing her head. “In Asgard, Odin would go into Odinsleep every few centuries to regain his strength. We didn’t know it before, but it looks like Thor can do it, too.”

“But he wasn’t hurt during the fight. Why would he need to regain his strength?”

Loki tried to speak, his voice failing him at that moment, that only a raspy wheeze escaped him. Switching to sign language, he motioned his thoughts with his hands.

Valkyrie gritted her teeth when she read his hands, her jaw muscle jumping. “Loki, enough.”

Loki signed again rapidly, a sneer accompanying his words.

Valkyrie clicked her tongue with a small “tchk” sound instead of rebutting him again, rubbing her forehead with her fingers and turning back to Bruce. “After Thanos, Thor just… gave up. He fell into the Odinsleep soon after we settled here, and has been like this ever since.”

“Isn’t there a way to wake him up?” Bruce asked.

Loki flicked his hand, summoning a knife from the ether.

Valkyrie rolled her eyes. “We’re not stabbing him, Loki.”

Loki shrugged, disappearing the knife.

Bruce rubbed his forehead, swallowing the lump in his throat as he finally looked back at the bed. “What about everyone else? Your people? Do they know?”

“They know what Thor, and now Loki and I, want them to know,” Valkyrie said. “They come up here, every once in a while, to leave tribute, keep the place neat and tidy and fresh; but as far as they know, Thor _does_ need to regain his strength after battling Thanos. Morale is low enough after what Thanos did; Loki and I are keeping things together, but only barely. They would be crushed if they knew the truth.”

“They’ve believed this for five years?”

“Odin could sleep longer; decades, even. It’s not strange to them.”

“And what happens if Thor never wakes up? If he never recovers?”

Valkyrie stared at Thor through the gold shimmer, a pinched, tired frown on her face. “Then Asgard is done for, for good.”

*

Bruce sat on the armchair beside Thor’s bed, his face buried in his hands. Loki and Valkyrie stood elsewhere in the house, giving him a moment alone with his friend. Rocket stopped pacing the room and climbed onto the arm of the chair, perching on the end, his hands clasping his knees. He stared at Bruce for a few moments, waiting for him to speak. When Bruce remained silent, he cleared his throat.

“So, what’s the plan, now?”

Bruce sighed, raising his head from his hands and resting his chin on them. “I don’t know.”

He stared at Thor through the force field surrounding him, his face giving no sign that he could hear them. Within the shining gold light, he appeared unchanged since the last time Bruce saw him, his hair and beard remaining cropped close as it had five years past, his eye patch nestled over his damaged eye. Suspended in time, stripped of his armour and wrapped in a dark, ceremonial-looking robe, only the slight rise and fall of his chest indicated life, his breathing so slow and deep Bruce had to squint to see it.

“This is awful.”

“Eh, it’s not that bad. The plan isn’t completely screwed without him,” Rocket said. “We just gotta improvise a little bit.”

“No, not the plan.” Bruce scrubbed his face, carding his hands through his hair. “This is… this is just… We should’ve _known_. Someone should’ve check in on him, made sure he was okay. How could we all lose touch so badly we didn’t know?”

“Bruce, come on, you can’t blame yourself.”

“I said I’d help him save Asgard. Instead, I ditched him the moment I set foot back on my own planet; who cares about someone else’s people, right?”

“I think you’re being a bit too harsh on yourself, there. I mean, you technically held up your end of the promise.”

Bruce shook his head, looking back up at the bed, one hand over his mouth.

Rocket looked away uncomfortably, scratching his cheek, before he reached out to gently pat Bruce’s arm. “Hey, come on, it’s not that bad. We’ll make it through with the plan, bring everyone back, and he’ll wake up again as if none of it ever happened. Everything will be fine.”

“You really think so?”

“No, but I gotta say something to stop you moping about.”

A gentle rap on the door drew their attention, and they looked over to see Valkyrie standing in the doorway.

“Hey,” she greeted softly. “Everything alright?”

Bruce sighed, and straightened, wiping his hands on his trousers. “No, but it hasn’t been right for five years.”

Valkyrie gave a sympathetic look, nodding in understanding.

“Would you like to stay the night? I’ve got a spare room,” she offered. “It’s not much, but… it saves you travelling again, so soon after you got here.”

“Thank you, Valkyrie, that sounds… that sounds really good. Thank you,” Bruce agreed, standing. Valkyrie nodded.

“We were thinking of heading back soon; you need a few more minutes?”

“No. No, I’ll be alright,” he assured.

Valkyrie nodded, and stepped out again.

“Well, time to hit the hay,” Rocket said, jumping down from the chair and brushing off his trousers, heading after Valkyrie. He looked over his shoulder when he didn't hear Bruce follow: he stood unmoving, staring sadly at Thor. He sighed, scratching behind his ear. “Bruce, you can’t help him. He’s been in this coma thing for five years; he’s not going anywhere.”

Bruce nodded, his shoulders slumping. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

He reached out and lay his hand upon the shimmering gold dome separating them, the warmth of magic tickling his palm, like champagne bubbles fizzing against his skin.

“Thor,” he began, speaking quietly through the barrier. “Thor, before I leave, I just want to say; I’m sorry. I’m sorry about Asgard, about Thanos, about these last five years. You always stood up for earth, whenever we needed you to; against Loki—twice—against Malekeith, against Thanos, even though it wasn’t your home.”

He paused. “It should’ve been. We should’ve—we should have been there for you, like you were there for us, when we needed help. We weren’t, and I’m… I’m really sorry, but we’ll fix this. We’ll fix everything, and when you wake up, things will be better. I promise.”

He heaved a sigh, rubbing a hand down his face and dropped his hand from the barrier. He turned away, following Rocket out of the room, the door silently swinging shut behind him.

* * *

Bruce startled awake, pushing himself upright in bed and straining his ears, searching the night for what had awoken him. A sliver of moonlight slipped through the split in the curtains, the distant rumble of the ocean carried on the wind as the town bell chimed one in the morning. He had slept amidst chaos before; Kolkata and Rio De Janeiro and New York City, before his life became significantly greener, so a little ocean breeze and clock chimes wouldn’t be enough to spook him awake.

Pots clattered together in the kitchen, a stool scraped across the floor; Bruce was out of bed and the room, meeting Valkyrie as she stalked along the corridor with a dagger in her hand. She nodded towards the stairs, and Bruce followed closely as she descended; keeping their footsteps light and their heads low behind the bannister, Bruce listened for any new noise from the kitchen. Another clang of metal, and a grunt reached his ears, followed by a bark of laughter that made them stop short on the last step.

“Rocket?” Bruce called out.

Valkyrie visibly straightened from her fighter’s hunched stance, and slapped the hallway light on as she stormed toward the darkened kitchen. Bruce hurried after her, blinking rapidly to adjust his eyes. He caught up where she halted at the doorway, smacking the light on and bathing the kitchen in fluorescent yellow light, grabbing the attention of the two occupants at the kitchen table.

“What the bloody hell—?” Valkyrie demanded.

“Hey guys!” Rocket greeted far too cheerfully. “Check who finally woke up.”

Valkyrie and Bruce stared silently in shared shock as Thor ate his way through Valkyrie’s kitchen, chugging water in between bites until it ran down his chin and clung to his beard in little droplets, still dressed in the plain, dark robe he had slept in; by the door, his axe rested against the wall. Pausing, he turned his one eye to them, catching his breath and wiping his chin with his forearm, his gaze fixating on Bruce.

“You say there’s a way to fix everything?” he asked, his voice deep and scratchy from lack of use. “To undo it all?”

“You could hear me?”

“I heard you.” Thor nodded solemnly, a hard, focused look in his eyes that Bruce hadn’t seen before; even during the Avengers most vicious battles. “And now, I wish to know how.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, Loki and Thor isolate themselves in different ways; Thor with Odinsleep and Loki just avoiding people as much as he can, even his own reflection under another layer of glamour.
> 
> On a more cheerful note, I decided that Loki's disguise is basically Hiddleston in very casual clothes; I think it would've been cool and might have been a lot of fun to see him on screen as himself, but as Loki, you know what I mean?
> 
> So yeah, that's that chapter done. What do people want to read next?


	7. Returning Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Opening scene from Endgame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a whole lot of changes to this chapter, except adding Loki. 
> 
> Pretty basic compared to my other scene tweaks, but as always, let me know in the comments what you want to read next, and enjoy x

Tony tapped on the helmet, blinking against the pale white light that streamed from the eye pieces, and sat back against the pilot seat with an exhausted sigh. “Hey, Ms Potts. I, uh, I hope this is recording. It better be. Ugh.”

He flinched, wincing in discomfort as the hard metal of the chair support behind him dug into his back. He shifted, resettling himself. “If you find this, if you find any of these… don’t post it on social media, or anything. You know it’s gonna be a real tearjerker, I mean, it’s me, after all. You know how, um, how sensitive I can be. When I want to be.”

He swallowed, rubbing a tired hand down his face. “You might not see these. I don’t know if you’re even… if you’re still… God, I hope you are. God, please, please, still be there.”

He swallowed again, his gaze drifting to the ceiling as he blinked the tears back, steadied his breathing before he could continue.

“Today is… day twenty-one? Maybe twenty-two? Twenty-two, I think, yeah.” He nodded to himself, his eyes falling back to the beaten-up helmet. “The existential crisis of staring into the literal void of space aside, I’d say I’m feeling… feeling better today.”

He rubbed his left arm as the deep ache within his muscles flared, gripping his bicep as if he could squeeze the pain out. “The infection has run its course, thanks to the blue twins back there… would you, uh, would you believe that Loki is actually blue? Yeah… he, uh, I think he’s actually looking worse than me, if you can believe that.”

Tony glanced at the closed door separating the cockpit from the rest of the ship, where Loki would have found a flat surface to lay down on to rest, his skin an unusual dark blue threaded with pale, ridged markings. He had slept more and more since they had left Titan, becoming fatigued easily, unwilling to eat or drink much unless Tony or Nebula made him, unable to uphold whatever magic he used to keep him looking like himself. Whatever way his magic worked, he seemed to have used the last of his reserves to help Nebula heal Tony’s wound.

“I think the battle and everything took more from him than he wants to admit. Thanos really did a number on him... on all of us, really. Oh boy, um, if it weren’t for Nebula — she’s great, you’d love her; very practical, and only a little bit sadistic.”

He held up his hand, holding his finger and thumb a few millimetres apart.

“Just the tiniest bit. Pretty good at paper football though; she’s the ship’s reigning champion.” He huffed a weak laugh, dropping his hand to his lap again. He sighed tiredly, his eyelids drooping from exhaustion. Clearing his throat, he braced himself more firmly against the chair. “So, the fuel cells in the ship were damaged during the fight; the three of us managed to reverse the charge and give ourselves, maybe forty-eight hours of flight time… which was twenty days ago, so. Now, it’s dead in the water. Rations ran out, about two days ago, and uh, oxygen levels will be depleted by tomorrow morning. After that, well, that will be it.”

He pressed his lips together in a thin line, squeezing his eyes shut and pulling in a steadying breath. “I know I… I promised you no surprises, I did, but I really, really wanted to pull one off, just one more time. Just so I could see your face again.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he rubbed his eyes, forcing them to stay open just a little bit longer. “Oh, jeez… Pep, I’m gonna have to lie down for a little bit. Just a while, to, to rest my eyes and uh, when I drift off tonight, I want you to know that it’s fine. I’ll be fine, just like I am every night, when lying down to sleep and, I’ll see your face again. I always see your face in my dreams. It’s always you.”

The helmet flashed at him, warning him that the memory was near full, and he reached out with trembling fingers, switching it off for the last time. The cockpit grew dark without it’s faint, pale glow, shrouding him in darkness. Tony blinked his tired eyes, still looking at the helmet, faintly outlined by the stars outside, and lay his hand upon the crown of the helm.

“Okay,” he whispered, exhaustion setting deep into his bones, his muscles slow and sluggish as he shifted down onto the floor, pulling his jacket over his shoulders. “Okay, I’m just… just gonna rest for a little bit, just a little bit bud…”

He slurred the last mumbling words, his eyes falling shut as sleep pulled him under, his hand still resting upon his helmet.

*

Nebula and Loki found him, still lying there some time later, half curled around the wrecked helmet, his breathing slow and laboured. Together, silently, they sat him upon the pilot’s chair; a mite comfier than the floor, but not by much. Reaching out, Nebula gently touched his shoulder, the chill of his skin leeching through the leather jacket. Loki stood back, curled in on himself, his arms wrapped around his middle as if to keep himself warm. With his dark blue skin, he blended in with the shadows seamlessly. Behind him, the oxygen monitors flashed a warning at 1%. His breathing had gotten worse lately as well; raspy and wheezing, becoming more laboured each day.

“He’ll be dead in three minutes, without oxygen,” Nebula said, her tone belying no emotion. Yet, she mourned for his impending death, feeling his shoulder rise and fall with his last number of breaths.

Loki nodded, his blood red eyes bright in the shadows.

“How long will you last?” Nebula asked, her eyes flicking to Loki.

Loki shrugged, shaking his head. He had fallen from the Bifrost and into the blackness of space for what felt like weeks, months, but he couldn’t tell if that were true. It may have only been minutes before he fell into the clutches of the Other, had been brought before Thanos. He couldn’t say for certain, how long he’d truly survive without air. He nodded to Nebula, returning the question to her.

She looked down at Tony again, her mouth set in a grim line. “I am more machine than anything else now. I will not die immediately without oxygen, but without it and other rations, I will eventually succumb to death.”

Loki nodded grimly, leaning his weight against the wall with a wordless, rasping groan; he was growing increasingly lethargic, attempting to keep himself fuelled with magic, unable to recharge what he was taking without rations, so his magic was sapping nutrients from his muscles, his bones, his blood. He was eating himself up from the inside; he would follow Tony into death faster than Nebula regardless of how much machine had replaced her flesh.

“Come,” Nebula whispered, her hand leaving Tony’s shoulder. “You should rest. I will keep watch while you sleep.”

Neither of them had to say that she would be watching over their corpses by tomorrow night, the reality too grim to say aloud. Nebula supported Loki’s weight against her as they headed out the cockpit, letting Tony sleep in peace.

*

Each breath Tony took grew more laboured, his lungs wheezing for air. He twitched and shivered in his half-sleep state, deep sleep eluding him in the growing chill of the cabin. The repetitive chatter of his teeth rattled through his head, the last remnants of the depleted oxygen hissing through them. The light-headedness began to set in, phosphenes flashing behind his eyelids as his body tried to draw in more air than there was, his breaths turning to shallow, quiet gasps. He sat, trapped in his own body, as he grew colder and weaker, too tired to even cry out in his own head at the knowledge of his last final minutes.

Then, cliché of all clichés, a bright, golden white light bloomed before him, burning away the darkness behind his eyelids. Warmth washed over him, like Pepper’s embrace, the chill falling from his fingertips and toes; everything that the Good Book promised when you were welcomed to the Promised Land of the afterlife and, well, that didn’t appeal to Tony whatsoever, and with the last of his strength, forced his eyes open to gaze at the beacon of light blazing through the window.

Squinting through the glare and the black edges of his vision, he saw the shape of a woman become clear, hovering just beyond the nose of the ship. She cocked her head, raising an eyebrow; her bemused half-smile seemed to say: “you look lost, pal – need a hand?” And, well, if help could be found in a flying, glowing woman who could traverse space without the need of a spacesuit, Tony would take it.

* * *

Steve met Natasha in the hallway, Bruce and Rhodey close behind.

“You feel that?” he asked.

“I hear it, too,” Natasha agreed. “Sounds like a space ship.”

“You think it’s friendly?” Rhodey asked as they all began to half-jog, half-run out into the open field behind the Avengers compound.

“God, I hope so.”

Pepper and Rocket were already waiting outside by the time they got there, the spacecraft circling the compound before setting down – or rather, set down – on the green by a woman on fire. They dared not hold their breath as the shuttle opened with a groaning, forced rumble, and the steps descended to the ground; approaching, Steve spotted the two shadowed figures leaning against each other as they wobbled down the steps, relief silencing all other thoughts and concerns as he recognised who stepped out of the ship.

“Oh my god,” Pepper gasped, exhaling on a sob. She clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle the rising tears of relief, her knees nearly buckling under her as Tony stepped down onto solid ground again. Steve was there to help support him, glancing at the unknown blue alien who bore most of his weight until Steve took his arm over his shoulder, and nodded respectfully to her.

“Thank you,” he whispered, and she nodded silently in return, stopping short of the last step onto earth. Tony looked between them with wide, unfocused eyes, as if he wasn’t sure which of them were real. Steve squeezed his arm, and Tony’s gaze snapped back to him, bright and alert, and he leaned against his side.

“I couldn’t stop him,” Tony wheezed, his breathing ragged and shallow, clutching tight to Steve’s shirt. Steve had always been able hold Tony’s weight easily, even in his armour; now it was alarming at how little effort he had to put into keeping Tony upright, his joints sharp through the pale, papery skin pulled taut over them. He loosened his hold on Tony, feeling his ribs bend under the pressure of his arm.

“Neither could I,” he admitted. The words burned, but a small hope still sparked at the sight of Tony: not all had been lost yet.

“I, uh… I, I…” Tony slowed, turning to face Steve, his dark, sunken eyes full of grief and pain, his chin trembling as he tried to say the words that weighed him down. “I lost the kid.”

“Tony, we lost,” Steve said gently. Tony nodded, sniffing back tears as he tried to form his next question, the words choking him, the muscles in his jaw straining with fear and sorrow.

“Is uh.. Is, is…”

“Tony!” Pepper was there, beside them, and the tension dropped from Tony like a boulder. He drew her into a hug, holding her close and kissing her cheek while she cried into his shoulder.

Steve kept his distance, close enough to grab Tony should his strength fail, but giving them the moment to reaffirm that they were both okay. He took his place by Tony’s side when they were ready, and together they escorted him back to the compound, passing Thor on the way back as he ran up to the ship.

He slowed when he caught sight of Nebula and Rocket sitting on the steps, their hands locked together in shared mourning. Nebula raised her head when he approached, and he looked between her and the open hatch of the ship.

“I thought…” he began, swallowing around the words as if he feared they would be found false. “I thought I felt…”

“Your brother,” Nebula confirmed, her voice quiet and scratchy as ever. “He is in the ship. He is ill. We did not know how to help him.”

Thor nodded. “Thank you.”

He raced up the steps, into the shadowed confines of the ship, his one eye searching the dark corners and wells that could support a grown man. Going deeper into the ship, he scanned the benches and the floor between the thin shafts of light spilling through the windows, his boots crunching over the rough debris from the round trip they took through space.

“Loki?” he whispered through the darkness, pushing low hanging cables out of his way. “Loki?”

A weak rasp of breath from the far corner drew his attention, and the pile of fabric – no, the hem of Loki’s coat – slithered over the pile of boxes stacked there, draping half to the floor. Loki remained steeped in shadow, barely visible as more than an outline in the darkness. Only his laboured breathing evidenced that he still lived, and Thor rushed over to him, dropping to his knees beside where he was half propped up against the wall behind him, his knees drawn up to his chest.

“Loki?” Thor reached out to grasp his knee, when a hand shot of the darkness and clamped around his wrist, stopping him in place. In the narrow shaft of light spilling into the ship, his lined, dark blue skin was revealed.

Thor stared at it, blinking as his mind comprehended _what_ he was seeing, and his gaze fell back to Loki, who stared out of the shadows at him with blood red eyes, wary and defensive, like a cornered animal. Swallowing, Thor gently pulled his hand out of Loki’s grip, and when Loki tried to draw back, Thor reached out and took hold of his hand, squeezing it reassuringly.

“It’s alright, brother,” he whispered, tears bubbling up his throat. He cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the lump that threatened to choke him with emotion, keeping his eyes fixed steadfastly on Loki. “It’s alright. I’m here.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to read, review, and give suggestions for scenes that could've gone differently.


End file.
